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Month: October 2015

I’ll be honest, Windows Phone app development is stagnant. As I get more and more excited for Windows Universal Apps that will run across platforms, I don’t often enough see the little icon indicating that the app I’m using is future proof and ready for Windows 10 Mobile, or just to use it on Windows 10 desktops. But that can’t stop me from using my phone in the ways I need it.

After recently migrating to a Lumia 640, I went to reinstall an app I had previously suggested (a very simple Ping utility) which has gone missing! So now I have found a new app to help me with some day to day Network testing. Network Tools, a simply named app from TwinTaps, has proved to be a wonderful tool to carry in my pocket.

With support for everything from WHOIS, to Ping, to NSLookup, and even the ability to check the IP, both local (such as 192.168.x.x) and public (like IPChicken or similar websites!), I find that Network Tools might just be one of the most under appreciated apps available for the Windows Phone. It’s very impressive, and I certainly hope it gets updated and is available when Windows 10 Mobile launches in the coming weeks and months.

LibreOffice (and it’s grand daddy, OpenOffice) are excellent programs with a long history in the Open Source community. The projects provide a wonderful inexpensive or even completely free alternative to the power house, Microsoft Office.

I’m often asked if there’s a way to open your Word, Excel, even PowerPoint files with LibreOffice. The good news is that once you install LibreOffice, it can automatically take over file associations, meaning that when you double click a .DOC (Word ’97-2003) or .DOCX (Word 2007-2016) file, it will open right up in the LibreOffice “Writer” module, just as if it were opening in Word.

But what about Saving files? By default, LibreOffice uses an ‘Open Document Format’ or ODF Text (.odt) file format to save documents. Although these should open in Microsoft Word, sometimes you send these files to colleagues, friends, or teachers, and the document won’t open on their end, and you catch heat. So the easiest thing to do is to make sure you’re saving all of your files in a compatible Microsoft Word format. Same goes for other document types. I’ll show you how to change the DEFAULT SAVE-AS FILE TYPE in LibreOffice to Microsoft compatible documents (I will provide examples of “Word” and “Excel” compatible files, once you have this down, you will be able to do other formats as well).

With LibreOffice installed (for this example I’m using version 5.0.1.2, September 2015), just click the “LibreOffice” icon on the desktop or in the Start Menu, then click “Writer Document” on the left, to create a new Writer document.

Click Tools from the Menu Bar across the top, then Options at the bottom of the Tools menu.

In the Options Menu, click the “+” sign beside “Load/Save” then click on General underneath that.

At the bottom right, you’ll see an option that says “ODF Text Document.” Click that Drop Down and change it to Microsoft Word 2007-2013 XML (to save as .DOCX), or Microsoft Word 97-2003 (to save as .DOC).

Next, click the drop down box above that, which simply says “Text document” and change it to “Spreadsheet.”

You can also change “Presentations” to PowerPoint compatible files (.pptx/,ppt). Important when choosing a Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint format, make sure you do not choose “TEMPLATE” by mistake. You do not want to save your every-day documents as TEMPLATES (an option you can see in some of the drop down list screen shots above), or that will cause issues for the people opening them.

That should do the trick, though! You now have a fully functional free alternative to Microsoft Office! Enjoy!